Part 12 (2/2)

”Wait now, don't s.h.i.+ft to Second yet. There, get it moving. All right, into Second now. Well, for crying out loud, push the clutch all the way IN IN before you s.h.i.+ft! before you s.h.i.+ft! YOU'RE GONNA STRIP THE GEARS YOU'RE GONNA STRIP THE GEARS! Here, lemme do it!”

Next thing I know I'm sitting in the back with my kid brother. Flubbed it again!

I was always trying to curry favor with both the Graham and my father by surprising him, especially on Sundays. The surprise consisted of was.h.i.+ng the Graham or polis.h.i.+ng the chrome with some pink stuff that my father used.

I was in the garage, working on the front b.u.mper. It was Sunday. The family was going out that night, and I was about to surprise everybody with a spectacular job on the chrome. I polished the rims on the headlights, and it's a tough job. My knuckles were sc.r.a.ped, my fingernails torn, the pink stuff soaking into my skin, but the grille was beautiful, just beautiful. And then I decided to back the car out of the garage by myself, to really surprise them. So that when they came out on the back porch they would see this blinding vision flas.h.i.+ng chrome. In my mind's eye I could hear them say: ”Why, what has happened to the Graham-Paige? It looks better than new!”

And I would just stand proudly, modestly by and wait for the praise and the honor that would be due me.

I finally finished the job. The Graham was glistening. I scrunched down in the driver's seat and started the engine. What a sense of Power! I checked the ammeter. It was flickering slightly on the ”Charge” side. Gas gauge-quarter full. Oil pressure-forty pounds. Normal.

I eased the clutch in and gently moved the gears.h.i.+ft lever into ”Reverse.” Already I was a master of gear-s.h.i.+fting. ”Ease out on the clutch gently,” and I began to roll backward out of the garage.

Screeeeeeaaaa....

I slammed on the brake and the clutch and hung in midair for a split second.

My G.o.d! I had sc.r.a.ped the left rear fender on the garage door! I put her in First and tried to roll forward.

Eeeeaae out! I just knew it. My father! He was going to come out in the backyard to look in the trunk, or to pick up a football or something.

The screen door slammed open, and it was my kid brother. My G.o.d! I head him off.

”Hey Ran, hey. Would you go down in the bas.e.m.e.nt? See if you can find my old...ah...my...remember that old skyrocket I had? See if you can find my old skyrocket, will you, Ran? Go on, Ran, see if you can find it for me.”

He looked at me and then went back in the house and down in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

I didn't want anyone to know what I had done, and time was running out!

I leaped in the car. Any minute now my Old Man was going to come out. I knew it. I slammed it in gear.

EEEEEEEEUUUNK!.

It was free!

I turned the key off and got out. There it was! The back fender neatly peeled, a long scratch the entire width of the fender and then some. What was I going to do!?

I knew what to do. Nothing! Absolutely nothing!

Five minutes later I was two blocks away, knocking out fly b.a.l.l.s and pretending I had never seen a car in my life.

That night we were all dressed up and in the Graham. I was in the back seat, and worried sick. n.o.body had even noticed that the back fender was sc.r.a.ped. I was keeping my mouth shut, and I was sweating: a thirteen-year-old Rascolnikov sizzling with guilt, fighting against the urge to blurt out: ”Stop the car! Look at the left rear fender! I did it! I am guilty! I am unworthy to exist in the bosom of such a wonderful, innocent group on its way to see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers! I am guilty and despicable!! Rotten to the core!!”

But what did I do? The same thing that modern man always does. Plays it cool. At least as cool as it is possible to be while shuddering under wave after wave of fear and guilt.

We parked the car and went into the movie. I was still safe. Darkness had obscured the raw wounds of my crime.

I squirmed through the movie in a cold sweat, barely able to concentrate on my taffy apple. All I remember was that this guy Astaire kept wearing a high silk hat-like Jiggs-and hopping around on the tops of pianos.

Another crucial moment came when we approached the Graham in the parking lot. I hung back, waiting for the thunderclap.

It did not come. The Chief merely got in the front seat and said: ”Pile in. Let's go.”

I scrunched down in the back seat and in my relief and nervousness talked a blue streak all the way home.

But later, in bed, the old icy sweat came back. He would have have to see it tomorrow, and he would know! There was no escape! I squirmed and sweated for half an hour or so, and then developed a gigantic gut-heaving stomach ache. My mother dragged me into the John, limp and wan, and hung my head over the bowl. Taffy apples of years past squirted out of my nose, my ears.... to see it tomorrow, and he would know! There was no escape! I squirmed and sweated for half an hour or so, and then developed a gigantic gut-heaving stomach ache. My mother dragged me into the John, limp and wan, and hung my head over the bowl. Taffy apples of years past squirted out of my nose, my ears....

”That'll teach you to listen to me about all that junk you always eat.”

I finally fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion.

The next morning for a few brief rapturous minutes I had completely forgotten that I was a doomed man. And then, halfway through my Wheaties, it all came back. My spoon hung in midair. The sun streamed through the kitchen windows. My mother's Chinese-red chenille bathrobe hunched over the stove, making coffee. All the old familiar things of my former carefree life lay about me. The cracked plastic radio on top of the refrigerator, the old kitchen table, my Little Orphan Annie shake-up mug, the blue gla.s.s s.h.i.+rley Temple sugar and cream set which meant so much to my mother, all part of a Better Time.

After school that day I went through the motions of ball-playing, a wizened, care-bent figure at second base, knowing full well that retribution was inevitably drawing nigh. It had had to come tonight! to come tonight!

My father usually got home from work about six, just in time for supper. We were expected to be in the house no later than five-thirty, washed up, and ready to eat. Tonight I lagged in the gloom, trying to forestall the inevitable. My fellow ballplayers had long since melted off into the twilight. In the distance I could hear my mother shouting for me through the kitchen door, and finally, painfully, I dragged myself home.

Staring out at me from the bathroom mirror-hollow eyed, lined death's head of a face, covered with Lifebuoy suds.

And then it came. A great angry roar of flying cinders, the Graham-Paige booming up the driveway, roaring around the back angrily, and then-silence.

The water trickled feebly in the sink. My kid brother blabbed somewhere off in the distance. I clung weakly to the towel rack, waiting for the fatal blow.

The kitchen screen door slammed. There was now no escape! A brief thought of drinking iodine pa.s.sed through my tortured cranium. They'd feel sorry then! But would they? They would probably welcome it, after what I had done!

I hear my mother's voice from the kitchen: ”What's the matter?”

And then a bellow of inchoate rage. I knew any minute thunderous footsteps would head for the bathroom. Already I could feel the sobs welling to the surface.

And then my father's voice, booming in rage: ”Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down at the parking lot! They banged up the fender on the Graham and the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds deny deny it!!” it!!”

I clung to the sink, bells ringing in my skull. I had been witness to an actual miracle. I would never again be an Unbeliever!

The voice angrily continued: ”I drove it in that lot absolutely perfect! Not a scratch on it!! Come on out and look at it!”

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